Novo Nordisk says it is refocusing its core business on diabetes and obesity, narrowing diversification efforts to expand access to GLP one drug for a vast, underserved global patient population.
Novo Nordisk is intensifying its focus on diabetes and obesity, pulling back from indications unrelated to those conditions as it seeks to expand the global market for GLP-1 medicines, executives said Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
The Danish drugmaker plans to center future development on patients with diabetes, obesity or overweight, limiting work in other diseases to conditions that commonly occur alongside those illnesses, CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar said. The shift marks a return to Novo’s historical strengths after years of broader diversification.
Novo Sharpens Focus on Core Metabolic Diseases
“The focus, again, will go back to obesity and diabetes,” Doustdar told conference attendees, emphasizing that Novo performs best when it concentrates on metabolic diseases where it has decades of experience.
Novo will retain its rare disease unit, but diabetes and obesity will serve as the starting point for most new programs outside that business, he said. Other indications will be pursued only if they represent comorbidities in patients with metabolic disease.
The strategy partially reverses a long-standing view held by company leadership. In 2019, then-board chair Helge Lund said long-term success depended on diversifying the product portfolio. Doustdar now argues that focus, rather than breadth, will drive growth.
Novo has expanded in recent years beyond diabetes, including a $725 million acquisition of a cardiovascular disease biotech and studies of its GLP one drug semaglutide in Alzheimer’s disease. Those efforts helped broaden the pipeline but also stretched resources, analysts have said.
Competition Heats Up in Expanding GLP-1 Access
Doustdar said Novo remains open to external deals to strengthen its obesity portfolio, telling Bloomberg the company is prepared to go “very big.” Novo lost a bidding war with Pfizer for obesity biotech Metsera late last year.
BMO Capital Markets said Doustdar expressed confidence that the renewed focus could help Novo reclaim leadership in the obesity market, a position it has lost to Eli Lilly. The analysts, however, cautioned that evidence of regained momentum is still limited after slower growth in 2025, driven by competition from Lilly and compounded drugs.
Novo and Lilly together reach only a fraction of potential patients, Doustdar said. An estimated 2 billion people worldwide have diabetes, obesity or overweight, including about 100 million in the United States.
“Us and Lilly combined have probably 10 million, 15 million patients,” Doustdar said. “What about the other 85 million? We need to get to them.”
Expanding access, rather than competing solely for patient switches between brands, is central to Novo’s growth plan, he said.
Oral GLP-1 Pills Seen as Key to Market Growth
A major pillar of that expansion is oral GLP one drug which could appeal to patients unwilling to take injections. Novo launched an oral version of its weight-loss drug Wegovy in the United States at the start of the year, becoming the first company to offer a GLP-1 pill for obesity.
Eli Lilly is awaiting a U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision on its rival oral GLP one drug, Orforglipron. Some analysts believe Lilly’s candidate could have advantages, including fewer dosing restrictions.
BMO analysts said the requirement that Wegovy pill users fast for 30 minutes after dosing could limit uptake if Orforglipron is approved. Lilly’s trials did not include a similar fasting rule.
Doustdar defended the Wegovy pill, citing the 1.5 million patients who already take Novo’s oral diabetes drug Rybelsus, which has the same fasting requirement. “It is manageable,” he said.
He also noted that Lilly’s trial protocol restricted orforglipron use around the timing of certain statins, which are commonly prescribed to people with obesity.
Novo’s leadership believes that lowering barriers to treatment, particularly through oral options, will be critical to reaching millions of untreated patients and sustaining long-term growth.
